Senior Executive, Research Administration

The Senior Executive takes on administrative tasks relating to academic research at the School of Humanities. The incumbent will monitor the compliance of projects with guidelines, policies and processes throughout the lifecycle of the projects, and initiate preemptive actions to prevent projects falling out of compliance. The incumbent will also support research initiatives of the School, and data reporting for KPI or sensemaking purposes.

Responsibilities

• Manage a portfolio of research grants and schemes for the School of Humanities.
• Work with Principal Investigators (PIs) on matters related to project budgeting, submission of proposals, award acceptance, account setup, research contracting, progress reporting and project closure.
• Advise PIs and project staff on compliance with University’s and grantor’s policies and processes on grant expenditure and research conduct.
• Monitor fund utilisation of grant-funded projects. Prepare and maintain financial reports, expense reconciliation, fund requisitions, and analyses for all stages of the project lifecycle.
• Verify reimbursement claims and purchase requests from project staff, student research assistants and contract researchers working on grant-funded projects. Follow up on claims till final disbursement.
• Review hiring or engagement of short-term researchers or academic visitors.
• Support collection, cleaning and presentation of data for audit or reporting purposes.
• Provide administrative support for events and initiatives by the research office.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in any discipline.
• Prior working experience in higher education environment would be an added advantage.
• Proficient in Microsoft 365 applications, especially Excel, Forms and Access for data submission, cleaning and processing.
• Experience with finance and KPI reporting functions would be advantageous.
• Meticulous with an eye for details and able to keep to timelines.
• Strong organisational and time-management skills.
• Good problem solving and negotiation skills.